List of All Articles with Tag 'politics'

The Biden administration has intensified its focus on tracing cryptocurrency payments that some of the most dangerous Mexican drug cartels use to buy fentanyl ingredients from Chinese chemical companies, the latest step in a renewed attempt to crack down on the multibillion-dollar fentanyl trade that kills thousands of Americans each year.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis wants to meet with Vice President Kamala Harris to discuss her criticism of the state’s Black history school curriculum standards after she joined widespread outrage over newly approved guidelines that diminish the impact of slavery and racist violence. “In Florida we are unafraid to have an open and honest dialogue about the issues. And you clearly have no trouble ducking down to Florida on short notice,” the governor wrote in a letter on 31 July, referencing her recent remarks in the state. “So given your grave concern (which, I must assume, is sincere) about what you think our standards say, I am officially inviting you back down to Florida to discuss our African American History standards,” he added. The administration also has invited William B Allen, one of the members of the working group that developed the standards who has a long history of inflammatory remarks and partisan rhetoric. The Independent has requested comment from the office of Ms Harris. The vice president travelled to Orlando on Tuesday to deliver remarks at the 20th Women’s Missionary Society of the African Methodist Episcopal Church Quadrennial Convention. Her visit follows remarks in the state on 21 July to condemn the state’s “propaganda” and the “extremist, so-called leaders” who support it. Though she did not name him or any other Florida officials, the vice president’s speech was directly aimed at the governor, whose administration has sought to radically overhaul public education and establish a “parents’ rights” agenda that restricts honest lessons of race and racism, threatens discussion of LGBT+ people and events, targets libraries and reshapes local school boards. A new set of standards for African American history in Florida schools will teach middle schoolers how enslaved people “developed skills” that could be “applied for personal benefit”. Another guideline instructs high schoolers to be taught that a massacre led by white supremacists against Black residents in Ocoee to stop them from voting in 1920 included “acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans.” Civil rights advocates, educators and lawmakers have warned that the guidelines present a distorted, revisionist picture of American history. “Adults know what slavery really was. It involved rape, it involved torture, it involved taking a baby from their mother, it involved some of the worst examples of depriving humanity of people in our world,” Ms Harris said in her remarks in Jacksonville. Members of the working group and the Florida Board of Education have defended the unanimously approved standards, assuring that they include comprehensive lessons on American history, including its darkest chapters. Mr Allen, a Black professor emeritus at Michigan State University who also sits on the national advisory board of the right-wing think tank Center for Urban Renewal and Education, has repeatedly defended the working group’s guidelines. A review of his past statements from Popular Information reveals a history of incendiary, contrarian remarks used to bolster and legitimise right-wing ideology. In 1989, he faced protests while participating in a panel titled “Blacks? Animals? Homosexuals? What is a Minority?” on which he claimed that special classes of protection for LGBT+ people and other minorities are a “fatal” mistake that heighten “tensions and antagonism”. Creating legal protections for minority groups “is the beginning of the evil of reducing American blacks to an equality with animals and then seducing other groups to seek the same charitable treatment,” according to prepared remarks. His speech was denounced by the US Civil Rights Commission – on which he was then serving as chair – as “disgusting” and “necessarily inflammatory”. That same year, he also was charged with kidnapping a 14-year-old girl from a Native American reservation in Arizona while she was the subject of a custody battle between her mother and a white couple who adopted her. Mr Allen also has opposed race-conscious admissions in higher education, including leading a campaign with a group that included members of the conservative Christian Hillsdale College and right-wing interest group the Heritage Foundation. He also has criticised The 1619 Project, which is explicitly banned from Florida schools, and has rejected concepts including “systemic racism, institutional racism [and] white privilege.” Mr DeSantis has routinely accused “the left” and Democratic officials of “indoctrinating” students in the state while he promotes an agenda that bans honest discussions of race and racism, sexuality and gender. The governor’s administration also recently approved materials from right-wing political advocacy group PragerU to be included in K-12 classrooms. The founder himself has said that those lessons are explicitly designed to indoctrinate. The campaign for Mr DeSantis, who is seeking the Republican nomination for president in 2024, has fired back at Black Republicans in Congress who have joined criticism of the African American history standards, including US Reps Byron Donalds and John James, as well as 2024 rival and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott. Both Mr James and Mr Donalds have endorsed Donald Trump. Read More Why Florida’s new curriculum on slavery is becoming a political headache for Ron DeSantis Most of Florida work group behind controversial new guidelines on African American history did not agree, report says The GOP primary is already decided. We’re just pretending it isn’t

The Biden administration is launching a beta website for its new income-driven student loan repayment plan today, officials told CNN, allowing borrowers to begin submitting applications for the program as federal student loan payments are set to resume in October.

US officials are searching for Chinese malware hidden in various defense systems that could disrupt military communications and resupply operations, The New York Times reported Saturday.

Most of the members taking part in the working group developing new standards for teaching African American history in Florida reportedly didn’t agree to the parts of the controversial measure which has drawn strong rebukes. Three members of the group have told NBC News that this includes the policy that middle school students should be taught that enslaved people developed “skills” that they were able to use for their “personal benefit”. The members, who chose to remain anonymous, told the network that most of the working group didn’t want the inclusion of language stating that high school students should be taught about violence carried out “by African Americans” during lessons about issues such as the race massacres in Ocoee and Tulsa. “Most of us did not want that language,” one of the members told NBC, noting that two out of the group’s 13 members pushed for the inclusion of those two items. The work group’s standards were unanimously approved by the Florida Board of Education on 19 July. They are now set to be instituted in teaching kindergarten through 12th grade. The standards have been slammed as propaganda and pushing a sanitized version of US history. Critics argue that the standards are attempting to conceal the horrors of slavery, such as rape, murder, and forced labour in an attempt to make it seem like an apprenticeship. “These extremist, so-called leaders should model what we know to be the correct and right approach if we really are invested in the well-being of our children,” Vice President Kamala Harris said last week. “They dare to push propaganda to our children. This is the United States of America. We’re not supposed to do that.” The members of the working group who spoke to NBC News told the network that only two members wanted the inclusion of the controversial language. Those members, William Allen and Frances Presley Rice, said in a joint statement last week that the new standards set guidance for “comprehensive and rigorous instruction on African American history”. “The intent of this particular benchmark clarification is to show that some slaves developed highly specialized trades from which they benefitted,” they said. “This is factual and well documented.” The members said that Dr Allen pushed for including that slaves benefitted from the skills that they learned and that Dr Presley Rice argued for the inclusion of “violence perpetrated against and by African Americans”. “People were very vocal,” one group member said, questioning “how there could be a benefit to slavery”. “However, Dr Allen is focusing on the few slaves who actually did learn something and keeps alluding to Frederick Douglass,” one work group member told NBC. “What he is saying is not accurate for most of the slaves.” The three group members said separately that Dr Allen is “persuasive” and “knowledgeable” and that the working group ended up deferring to him. Two of the members said the issue was tabled to be discussed at a later time and didn’t remember that it ever came up for a vote. One member said the language was “problematic” and that the group “could have done a better job” if given more time. Dr Presley Rice told NBC: “I recommend highly that you get in touch with the communications department at the Department of Education, and all your questions will be answered.” The Independent has reached out to the department for comment. The changes were put in place to satisfy a new law signed by Florida Governor and Republican Presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, who has distanced himself from the process of creating the new standards even as he defended them. “You should talk to them about it,” he said about the group last week. “I didn’t do it. I wasn’t involved in it.” “What they’re doing is, they’re probably going to show some of the folks that eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life.” “Any attempt to reduce slaves to just victims of oppression fails to recognize their strength, courage and resiliency during a difficult time in American history,” Dr Allen and Dr Presely Rice said in their statement. “Florida students deserve to learn how slaves took advantage of whatever circumstances they were in to benefit themselves and the community of African descendants,” they added. Dr Presley Rice wrote on 22 July on Facebook that “It saddens me to observe how falsehoods are being perpetuated now by some people with questionable intent, using cherry-picked language, taken out of context, to undermine the fact-based Academic Standards crafted by the Workgroup I was a part of, due to my decades-long quest to have the full, unvarnished history told about African Americans”. Dr Allen previously told NBC that the group “deliberated between February and the end of April to review the curriculum standards and to propose new benchmarks and standards”. “I think we may have had, over the course of the period from February to April, three or four meetings,” he added. Mr DeSantis said last week that the new curriculum “is rooted in whatever is factual”. “They listed everything out,” he added. “And if you have any questions about it, just ask the Department of Education. You can talk about those folks but I mean, these were scholars who put that together. It was not anything that was done politically.” The president of the Florida Education Association, Andrew Spar, told NBC last week that “Right now we are working to bring people together to get these standards changed or overturned”. “We are concerned about the conflict that teachers have — we are required to be honest and ethical in our dealings and we are required to teach the standards. What do we do if the standards are not honest and ethical?” he asked. Read More Historically Black fraternity drops Florida for convention because of DeSantis policies DeSantis car crash revealed misuse of government vehicles for 2024 campaign, report claims Water is refreshing in the heat, right? In parts of Florida this past week, not so much CLIMATE GLIMPSE: Here's what you need to see and know today Historically Black fraternity drops Florida for convention because of DeSantis policies Seven in 10 US adults believe in angels, new poll shows

Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina pushed back Thursday against Republican rival Ron DeSantis over his state's new Black history curriculum, which says middle school students should be taught that enslaved people learned some skills they later used to their benefit.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday accused Rep. Byron Donalds -- the only Black Republican in Florida's congressional delegation -- of aligning himself with Vice President Kamala Harris by critiquing the state's new standards for teaching Black history.

House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan announced Thursday that he is scrapping his plans to move forward with a contempt vote in light of Facebook turning over more documents to the committee.

Republican US Rep Byron Donalds has repeatedly echoed other GOP officials in a specious crusade against “critical race theory” and “woke” indoctrination in American schools. But on 26 July, the Florida congressman called on Florida’s Department of Education to “correct” newly approved curriculum guidelines for middle school students to learn how enslaved people “developed skills” that could be “applied for personal benefit”. “The new African-American standards in FL are good, robust, [and] accurate,” he wrote on Twitter, now known as X. “That being said, the attempt to feature the personal benefits of slavery is wrong [and] needs to be adjusted. That obviously wasn’t the goal [and] I have faith that FLDOE will correct this.” In an interview with Florida’s WINK-TV, Mr Donalds, who is Black, suggested the standards need “some adjustments” and that Florida’s Board of Education could “bring refinement” to the curriculum standards for African American history lessons that the board unanimously approved earlier this month. The standards have been widely derided by educators, Democratic officials and the White House; Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to the state last week to condemn “propaganda” and the “extremist, so-called leaders” who support it, a not-so-thinly veiled strike against Governor Ron DeSantis and his 2024 campaign for the Republican nomination for president. After his comments, Mr Donalds felt the wrath of the DeSantis campaign and other state officials. “Did Kamala Harris write this tweet?” replied DeSantis aide Christina Pushaw. Florida’s Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr said that the state standards would not be changed “at the behest of a woke [White House], nor at the behest of a supposedly conservative congressman.” “Supposed conservatives in the federal government are pushing the same false narrative that originated from the [White House],” said DeSantis press secretary Jeremy Redfern. “Florida isn’t going to hide the truth for political convenience,” he added. “Maybe the congressman shouldn’t swing for the liberal media fences like [the vice president].” In March, Mr Donalds joined other prominent Florida Republicans to endorse Donald Trump for president. “The Congressman also calls it like he sees it, and if he thinks something is BS, he’ll tell you. That’s why we like him so much,” said Trump aide Jason Miller, who called attempts to “smear” Mr Donalds “a disgrace”. Mr Donalds responded to the inter-party backlash, stating that “anyone who can’t accurately interpret what I said is disingenuous and is desperately attempting to score political points.” Read More Why Florida’s new curriculum on slavery is becoming a political headache for Ron DeSantis DeSantis will headline barbecue billed as the largest annual gathering of South Carolina Republicans Watch: Diver rescues shark hooked to artificial reef Coast Guard calls off search for man who jumped off Carnival cruise ship

An ad launched by Progress Action Fund launched, showing an elderly Republican congressman interrupting a couple in the bedroom, has now been banned on X, formerly known as Twitter. According to the Progress Action Fund, which aims to defeat Republicans in red states, the platform “has censored” its account as well as the ad, called “Keep Republicans Out Of Your Bedroom.” In addition, the platform has “placed a ‘Search Ban’ and a ‘Search Suggestion Ban’ on the account.” As of Wednesday afternoon, the account did not show up on the social media platform, yet the ad could still be seen on X through retweets from other accounts. The Progress Action Fund said it contacted the platform’s legal department and “appealed the decision, which was denied.” Joe Jacobson, Founder and Executive Director of Progress Action Fund, took a stab at X’s owner: “Elon Musk loves free speech, but only when it’s convenient for him and his far-right political agenda.” “Political speech is protected under law and Musk’s competitors clearly agree that our ad should not be censored,” he continued. “When releasing ads in the future, we’ll be taking them to other platforms, which many others are already doing given Elon Musk’s frantic and poor leadership at Twitter.” The Independent has reached out to X for comment. The ad features a scene in which a woman asks a man if he has a condom. He reaches for the condom in a bedside table drawer, and another suit-covered arm appears, reaching for it as well. “Sorry, you can’t use those,” says an older man, clad in a black suit and red tie, while standing beside the bed. When the woman asks who he is, he replies: “I’m your Republican congressman. Now that we’re in charge, we’re banning birth control.” The ad urges voters to “vote no” on 8 August, in reference to State Issue 1, which would require proposed amendments to Ohio’s constitution “receive the approval of at least 60 per cent of eligible voters voting on the proposed amendment,” rather than a simple majority. Since acquiring Twitter, Mr Musk, a self declared “free speech absolutist”, has touted free speech as a pillar of the platform. As part of this shift during the takeover, he reinstated Donald Trump’s account after a two-year ban, which was “due to the risk of further incitement of violence” after the January 6 Capitol riot. He also reinstated at least 11 accounts belonging to prominent far-right and anti-trans influencers. On 23 November, the platform announced it “is no longer enforcing the Covid-19 misleading information policy.” As recently as April, the platform claimed to strive to “promote and protect the public conversation. We believe Twitter users have the right to express their opinions and ideas without fear of censorship.” In May, he wrote: “I am adamant about defending free speech, even if it means losing money.” Read More Democratic PAC unveils ‘steamy and horrifying’ ad with GOP lawmaker interrupting couple in bedroom Elon Musk slammed for pushing anti-vax conspiracy in response to LeBron James’ son Bronny suffering cardiac arrest Elon Musk takes control of @X account from user who had held it for 16 years Elon Musk slammed for anti-vax rant in response to LeBron James’ son’s cardiac arrest Fox News promotes conspiracy theory linking Bronny James collapse to Covid vaccine Anti-vaxxers claim Bronny James’s cardiac arrest is suspicious. Here’s why it isn’t

Why was a major candidate for the presidency just asked about a lesson set to be taught to middle school students in Florida social studies classes? Governor Ron DeSantis found himself answering yet more questions about his state’s new conservative-friendly social studies curriculum at a press event in Utah over the weekend as the Republican sees continued signs that his record on racial and social issues in the Sunshine State will be an issue in the upcoming GOP primary debates and, potentially, the 2024 general election. Mr DeSantis’s campaign held a summit with donors in Utah this past weekend where top advisers pledged a reboot to the Florida governor’s stagnating presidential bid including cutbacks to pricy expenditures including private events that have not helped his standings in the polls improve. The candidate himself held a press conference on Friday, where the question about Florida schools was directed to him. The Florida Department of Education’s social studies standards for the 2023-2024 school year, released this month, provide lesson topics for middle school teachers including a “benchmark clarification” which instructs educators to teach students that “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit”. It isn’t clear what “their personal benefit” would be in this scenario. The line is included as part of a broader lesson entitled: “Examine the various duties and trades performed by slaves (e.g., agricultural work, painting, carpentry, tailoring, domestic service, blacksmithing, transportation).” Mr DeSantis has come under fire for the curriculum changes, from both Democrats and Republicans alike. Last week, Vice President Kamala Harris railed against Mr DeSantis without naming the Florida governor. “There is a national agenda afoot. Extremist so-called leaders for months have dared to ban books. … Extremists here in Florida, passing a law ‘Don’t Say Gay,’ trying to instill fear in our teachers … And now, on top of that, they want to replace history with lies.” And former New Jersey Gov Chris Christie, who is seeking the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, also called out the governor for what he claimed was a lack of leadership. While the change to the curriculum itself is subtle — a single sentence added to a much larger document — the news of its insertion played into a larger narrative of Florida’s right-wing shift under the DeSantis administration. Florida schools, in particular, are the biggest battleground for this war, where liberal groups and nonpartisan experts alike warn that students are increasingly the recipients of a whitewashed educational environment devoid of anything that conservatives find unseemly or uncomfortable, such as discussions of the sins of slavery, representation of LGBT+ persons in the classroom or teaching materials, and other narratives that brush up against conservative belief systems. The changes to Florida schools had already earned the state the condemnation of the NAACP and other civil rights groups, something that has enraged conservatives and drawn the state into an ugly national fight against any group or organisation that the governor perceives to have a liberal agenda, including the Disney corporation. Now, he is officially a candidate for president and facing the reality that his loyally conservative record in Florida has failed to allow him to make serious inroads against Donald Trump and his support base, while he remains engaged in fighting off competitive rivals like Vivek Ramaswamy and others in the crowded Republican primary contest. It remains to be seen whether his campaign reset (which continued this week with layoffs of roughly a third of his staff) will be a necessary fat-trimming measure or the sign of his campaign’s early demise; what is certain is that the issue of the quality of education in Florida’s schools is not going away, at least any time soon. Read More Four cars in Ron DeSantis motorcade crash into each other on way to Tennessee fundraisers Biden laughs off impeachment threat after McCarthy teases inquiry Trump goes on late-night Truth Social rampage against ‘loser’ and ‘lowlife’ Mitt Romney Ron DeSantis: The new Jeb Bush Why was Donald Trump impeached twice during his presidency? DeSantis campaign fires aide behind neo-Nazi meme video

Newly declassified court documents revealed Friday that the FBI improperly searched for the name of a US senator in an intelligence database after indications of a foreign threat against the lawmaker, as the intelligence program has come under a barrage of criticism in Congress and from privacy advocates.